#JapanesePhrase
いただきます
itadakimasu
literally 'I humbly receive"
this, is said before eating, to express gratitude for all who played a role in preparing, cultivating, ranching or hunting the food
it's similar to saying grace before a meal

#JapaneseGrammar
The Japanese language does not have plurals like English does. An example of that is 花 (はな, [hana]) means 'flower" or "flowers", depending of the context involucrated in the sentence

#JapanesePronunciation
the つ “tsu” character can be used to mark a small pause that makes the next sound stronger, when used for this purpose it’s smaller than the rest of the characters, this is romanized with a double of the next letter, for example: にっき nikki (journal or diary) and なっとう nattou (fermented soybeans)

#JapaneseWritingSystems
Kanji are Chinese characters imported into Japan. There are tens of thousands of them, but the japanese government published a list of them that every citizen needs to know: the Jouyou kanji which consists of the 1945 most commonly used kanji

Hiragana is one of the two syllabic alphabets of Japanese. It is used mainly to write Japanese words and to show how a to read a word or phrase in kanji

Katakana is the second of the two syllabaries of Japanese. Nowadays, it is used mainly for foreign names and terms, items in Japanese pop culture and for some onomatopoeia.

The following shows the three systems being used at the same time is 私の名前はマリアです (My name is Maria):

私 [watashi] -> kanji
の [no] -> hiragana
名前 [namae] -> kanji
は [wa] -> hiragana
マリア [Maria] -> katakana
です [desu] -> hiragana

An example with a writing form on all three systems is [dame] literally, “no good”, commonly used to say something should not be done, for instance, たたかうはダメ [tatakau wa dame] which means “you shouldn’t fight”, in kanji is 駄目, in hiragana is だめ, and in katakana is ダメ

#JapanesePhrase
To greet someone throughout the day you can say こんにちは [konnichi wa], literally “this day”, but used to say “Good day!” or “Hello!”

#JapaneseWritingSystems
check Hepburn Romanization to understand how to write Japanese in roman letters, ふ becomes "fu", but the sound of 'f' is between the foo in fool and the hoo in cahoots, NOT as the 'f' in fire

#PolitenessInJapanese
You can think of ございます [gozaimasu] as a sort of politeness marker, but be careful not to use it with everything

#TalkingCasualInJapanese
To greet someone in the evening you can say こんばんは [konban wa], literally meaning “this evening” but used to say “Good evening!”

#JapanesePhrase
To greet someone in the evening you can say こんばんは [konban wa], literally meaning “this evening” but used to say “Good evening!”

#JapanesePhrase
if it’s late in the day, or if you know you won’t see a person soon, you use さようなら [sayounara] as a farewell

#JapanesePhrase

You can say ではまた [dewa mata], literally meaning “well then, another time” to say “See you later”

this is keigo, so it's not rude, but if you're speaking with friends, you would say じゃあまた [jaa mata]

#JapanesePhrase
You can say またあした [mata ashita], literally meaning “another time tomorrow” to say “see you tomorrow”

#JapanesePhrase
You can add a location to “see you later” with the particle で [de], for example, じゃあ,またクラスで [jā, mata kurasu de!] means “I’ll see you later in class!”

#JapanesePhrase
Japanese people don't say さようなら [sayounara] to their family. When go out in the morning, they say 行って来ます [いってきます] [itte kimasu!], which literally means 'I’ll go and come back"

#JapanesPhrase
よろしくおねがいします [yoroshiku onegaishimasu] means “please take care of me” or 'please be kind to me" but it used to say “I hope we can get along" or "let’s be friends” or many other things depending on the situation

中 means "in the middle", or "inside", it can be used to mean "in the middle of [doing X]", for example 電話中です [でんわちゅうです] "I'm on the phone" (or "I'm in the middle of a phone conversation")

はず is used to say "supposed to" or "should", for example 今、勉強中はず [いま、べんきょうちゅうはず] means "[I] should be studying now"

you can use the て form of a verb to form sequences of actions, for example, あれをやめてあそこへ行きましょう [あれをやめてあそこへいきましょう] "stop that, [and] let's go over there"

you could also "chain" for longer sequences, for example, あれをやめて、これを食べて、あそこへ行きましょう [あれをやめて、これをたべて、あそこへいきましょう] "stop that, eat this, and let's go over there" or "stop that, and eat this, then let's go over there"

#JapaneseCulture
honorifics are small words you put after someone's names, they can sometimes be actual words, or sometimes be 'non-words"

for example, in 本田さん [ほんださん] "Mr. Honda"
さん is not exactly a word, but when translating, you refer to "Mr. Honda", not just "Honda"

but in 高木先輩 [たかぎせんぱい] "Senior X Takagi"
先輩 [せんぱい] actually means "Senior X", usually for organizations or schools, so a 3rd year student in school is the senior to a 1st year student, and an employee of a company is the senior of a recently hired employee, though in some contexts, so it is a word, but can be used like さん would be used, as an honorific

the most common ones are

さん used for formal speech
ちゃん used for kids, girls (like a girlriend), or childhood friends sometimes
くん used mostly for males of similar age, but can be used for female juniors
様 [さま] is very respecful, you mostly won't use this, but might see it used for gods, royalty or formalities in events
先生 [せんせい] used for professors, or professionals of some renown, common with physicians, and mangaka of high renown

there are others, but less common

you can put か at the end of a sentence to make it a question

it doesn't work for all sentences, but for a lot of basic ones it will work

if you think of 'indicative mood" sentences, it will work for most of them

for example

to turn "The weather is good today" into the question "is the weather good today?"

you can just add か at the end

今日はいい天気です [きょうはいいてんきです]

今日はいい天気ですか [きょうはいいてんきですか]